


In the Belly of the Beast

by watcherofworlds



Series: A Friendship Forged in Struggle [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 32557038, Arnim Zola Is A Sociopath, Battle of Azzano, Bucky Barnes Was Drafted, Enemy Capture, Escape, Factory Fire, Forced Labor, Human Experimentation, Illness, Medical Torture, Missing Scene, POWs, Red Skull Unmasked, Rescue, delerium - Freeform, jailbreak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 18:58:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8459191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watcherofworlds/pseuds/watcherofworlds
Summary: What happened to Bucky during and after the Battle of Azzano, leading up to his rescue by Steve and the unmasking of the Red Skull.





	

_October 21, 1943_

A rocket screamed into the air and exploded, shaking the sky with a sound like thunder. Machine gun fire ripped through the night. As Bucky ran, dodging bullets and other, smaller explosions, he wondered if the sky would break and come crashing down on them if they kept shaking it like that. He ran past a burning building and another explosion went off dangerously close to him, sending up a mushroom cloud of dirt and flame and knocking him off of his feet. He hit the ground, rolled, and dived behind a nearby ridge. Dugan and Jones joined him a moment later. 

"There's gotta be at least five mortar companies out there!" Dugan said, yelling to be heard over the gunfire and explosions.

"Radio B company, tell them we need cover!" Bucky shouted to Jones. Jones held up a smoking radio and said "That might be tough!"

"Bucky, behind you!" Dugan cried, and Bucky turned and shot the soldier who had been trying to sneak up on him from behind. He faced forward again, saw the enemy's forces advancing, and yelled "Here they come!"

"I hate these guys," Dugan muttered. Machine guns chattered as they exchanged fire with the enemy. Off in the distance, somebody shouted "Fall back!" Bucky thought it might have been Falsworth. He dived over the top of the ridge, Dugan and Jones right behind him. Now he had the high ground, which was what he needed. He sighted through his rifle scope and took out soldier after soldier-at least until they started disappearing in brilliant flashes of blue light.

"Stop!" Bucky yelled. All at once, the members of the 107th stopped shooting. A tense, anticipatory silence hung over them. Several people started cheering. Bucky felt unease gnawing at the pit of his stomach.

"What the hell was that?" Dugan said to no one in particular. A moment later Bucky's unease proved to be prophetic as more bolts of blue light sliced through the darkness, vaporizing more people-and not just enemy soldiers this time. More than one of their guys got caught in the fire and vanished-there one second, gone the next. The world shook, and a tank lumbered over the next rise. It was massive, bigger than any tank Bucky had ever seen, bigger than a Panzer, bigger than a Sherman, a towering metal behemoth of death.

"That looks...new," Dugan said. The tank turned its turret toward them. Bucky shuddered. Looking down that barrel was like trying to stare into the depths of a black hole. He heard a low, ominous whine as the tank's gun powered up.

"Run!" he screamed. An instant later, the tank fired, sending dirt raining down on their heads as it fired at them over and over again, trying to eliminate them even as they dodged and darted maniacally, trying to keep out of range of the deadly blue bolts. At some point Bucky stopped to try and catch his breath and realized that half of the 107th was simply...gone. Out of the original force of 200 men, only about 100 remained, clustered together in a tight group like zebras being hunted by lions.

"Go!" he yelled, gesturing frantically. "We have to split up! It's our only chance!" A group of about fifty people split off from the main group, glancing uneasily at each other. They turned and ran to the south, back toward their base camp. The remaining fifty began firing and hurling grenades at the tank, trying to distract its drive long enough to allow their comrades to make a clean getaway. They succeeded in that regard, but nothing they did left even so much as a scratch on the tank.

"The damn thing is indestructible!" Bucky heard Falsworth shout, echoing his  thoughts exactly. More shouts rang out through the night, as if they were responding to Falsworth's, but the shouts were in German, which meant it couldn't be any of them. In the next instant they were surrounded by enemy soldiers, who yelled angrily in German and gestured with their weapons, weapons that glowed with the same blue light that had just decimated the 107th Infantry. Bucky didn't speak German, but it was pretty clear that they wanted them to surrender. Surrendering was the last thing he wanted to do, but it didn't look as though he had a choice. He put his hands above his head, and his men followed suit. As the soldiers moved in and handcuffed them and started to lead them away, all Bucky could think was _I failed. I didn't keep my promise. I failed._

_Two Weeks Later..._

Bucky's chest hurt. Every time he inhaled it felt like someone was jabbing a white-hot knife between his ribs, and no matter how hard he tried he could never seem to take in enough air. He wondered if this was how Steve felt during an asthma attack. Paralyzed by a coughing fit, he could barely muster up the energy to turn away so that the guard wouldn't see how sick he was. Steve had gotten pneumonia enough times for Bucky to be able to recognize the symptoms, and he knew with terrible certainty that if his captors discovered his illness they wouldn't hesitate to kill him. He and his fellow prisoners were nothing more than slave labor to them, and there would be no reason to keep them around once they had outlived their usefulness.Try though he might, however, he couldn't hide the sound of his coughing from the guards, and he was dimly aware of them yelling to each other and pointing at him. Hands seized him roughly by the upper arms and dragged him away toward the center of the factory. Falsworth and Jones, who had been working with him, watched him go sadly-no one who was removed from the factory floor ever returned. Bucky was sure they were going to kill him. He didn't bother trying to resist. He was too weak to fight off not only the men dragging him but every other soldier in the factory. He was sure he'd be disintegrated if he tried. They dragged him to a room in the center of the factory. He couldn't read the sign next to the door, since it was written in German, but the place had an antiseptic smell about it, like a hospital-or a lab. One of the guards knocked forcibly on the door. A short, chubby man with thinning brown hair and round glasses answered. He wore a long white lab coat over a vest, slacks, and a bow tie, and his mouth seemed fixed in a permanent worried frown. He conversed rapidly in German with the guards, indicating a metal lab table in the room behind him, one with restraints that were clearly meant to hold a person. Bucky felt something like fear settle in his chest. Finished with his conversation, the man turned to Bucky and smiled. It was not a comforting smile. It was the smile of a satisfied predator. He dismissed the guards with a few brusque words and a wave of his hand. He turned to Bucky again.

"Greetings," he said in heavily accented English. "I am Dr. Zola. Follow me please."

"What makes you think I'm gonna just walk in there and lay myself down on your table?" Bucky demanded.  Dr. Zola laughed. 

"You are hardly in a position to resist," he said. "You are sick and weak, and I can always call the guards back and have them force you to cooperate. Really, things will be much easier for you if you go willingly." Bucky sighed. There didn't seem to be a way out of this. His steps heavy, he followed Zola into the room.

"You are from the 107th Infantry, yes?" Zola asked.

"Yeah," Bucky replied. "What difference does it make?"

"None," Zola said, writing something down on a clipboard. "I'm only trying to acquire some background information. Now, what is your rank?"

"Sergeant," Bucky ground out from between clenched teeth. "But-"

"Age?" Zola asked, interrupting him.

"Twenty-six," Bucky replied.

"Nationality?"

"American."

"Place of birth?"

"Brooklyn New York," Bucky snapped. This line of questioning sounded far too familiar, and brought back bad memories of the lies he'd told to keep Steve safe. "Is there any more useless information you need from me?"

"Careful Sergeant," Zola said. It was something his friends in the 107th said to him a lot, but when they said it it was playful, teasing. When Zola said it, it was a warning. "An attitude like that could get you killed if you don't learn to control it." Bucky snorted but thought it best not to reply. Zola made an odd, jerky movement, but before Bucky could process it he felt a sharp, needling pain in his arm, and then everything went black.

When Bucky came to he found himself laying on Zola's lab table. There were straps around his chest, stomach, and legs, preventing him from moving, and Zola was standing over him.

"You Americans are so proud of your supposed independence," he said mockingly. "You think yourselves lions, but in reality you are nothing more than sheep. All it takes is a firm hand and you fall right in line."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Bucky grunted, straining against the straps that held him. Then, thinking of his sister, who had called him a wolf when she was little, he added, "Some of us might turn out to be wolves in sheep's clothing."

"Oh, of course," Zola said, but his tone and the cruel laugh that followed his statement showed just how likely he thought that was. He turned away from Bucky and rummaged around on the wheeled metal cart beside him. When he turned back to face him again he was holding a hypodermic needle. He held it up, smiled menacingly, and tapped it with one finger. The dull thud of fingernails on glass had never sounded so ominous. Zola stabbed the needle into Bucky's arm and Bucky screamed in pain. It felt like Zola was injecting him with molten metal, like there was fire flowing through his veins instead of blood. Zola studied him intently, his face set in a frown. He made some notes on his clipboard, then left, leaving Bucky laying on the lab table, writhing in agony as whatever Zola had given him changed him on an elemental level, burning away the old Bucky Barnes and leaving something else in its wake.

Zola returned to the lab several times over the next several days. He would inject Bucky with the same destructive, nuclear chemical he had given him before and observe the results, scribbling down notes on his ever present clipboard. He seemed conflicted about the results of his experiments-he seemed please whenever he returned to the lab and found Bucky still alive, but during the procedure itself he would frown as he recorded his observations, muttering "Why won't it work?" After a while it got to the point where Bucky was left in a state of constant, excruciating pain. He started muttering to himself, a ceaseless litany of, "James Barnes. Sergeant. 32557038," not only because that's what he'd been trained to do in case of capture but also because, in his pain and delirium, he was afraid he would forget who himself, forget who he was and where he came from and the people he cared about. 

At one point, Bucky became aware of a commotion in another part of the factory, of shouts and explosions and alarms blaring, but his mind was in such a fog that he hardly payed it any mind.

"Sergeant...Barnes...32257...," he mumbled, too weak and exhausted to even speak in complete sentences anymore. He heard running footsteps, but he couldn't muster up the energy to pay attention to them.

"Bucky," a voice that sounded like Steve's said urgently. "Oh my god." Bucky heard a ripping sound as the straps holding him broke, then a series of metallic _clinks_  as their buckles hit the floor. A moment later, Steve loomed over him, but there was something...off about him. His shoulders, instead of being thin and frail like Bucky remembered them being, were broad and muscular. His breathing, though rapid, had none of the wheezing that heralded the looming threat of asthma that had dogged him all his life. His head seemed too far away, as if he had suddenly shot up at least a foot in the last four months.

"It's me," he said. "It's Steve."

"Steve," Bucky mumbled in reply, a smile spreading across his face. "Steve..."

"Come on," Steve said, placing an arm across Bucky's back and helping him to his feet. He examined him for injuries, concern etched in every line of his face. His hand hovered near Bucky's head before coming to a rest on his shoulder.

"I thought you were dead," he said, his voice heavy with the same worried relief that Bucky had felt for him many times over the years they'd known each other.

"I thought you were smaller," Bucky replied, because that's all he could think to say. The sound of energy weapons firing invaded the tomb like silence of the lab, followed by the distant chatter of machine guns. Steve glanced at the map on the wall in front of the lab table, his eyes narrowing as he studied it.

"Come on," he finally said, slinging Bucky's arm across his shoulders.

"What happened to you?" Bucky asked as they stumbled out of the lab.

"I joined the army," Steve replied with a grin. With Bucky leaning heavily on him, the two of them stumbled through the center of the factory, searching for the door that would lead out onto the factory itself and hopefully eventually out of the factory entirely.

"Did it hurt?" Bucky asked.

"A little," Steve admitted.

"Is it permanent?" Bucky asked.

"So far," Steve replied. They found the door that led out to the factory floor and emerged into baking heat and the roaring of flames, their faces painted by a lurid red glow. They were standing on a metal platform at the base of a set of stairs that twisted around toward the roof of the factory, branching off into landings that connected to the catwalks that crisscrossed the air above the factory floor along the way. There was nothing left of the factory floor below them but a raging inferno. Steve glanced around frantically. Spotting a catwalk above them that led to an elevator, he raced up the stairs toward it. Bucky stumbled after him, gripping the railings on either side of him to keep himself from falling over.

"Captain America! How exciting!" a German accented voice called out when Steve reached the catwalk. "I am a great fan of your films!" Steve froze. A man was standing on the opposite end of the catwalk from him, near the elevator. He was dressed in a black uniform of some sort, covered by a black leather trench coat, and shiny black boots. His brown hair was receding slightly, and his dark eyes gleamed with malice. Bucky spotted Dr. Zola behind the man's left shoulder and had to lean against the railing in front of him to brace himself against the urge to be sick. Steve and the man walked toward each other.

"So, Dr. Erskine managed it after all," the man said. "Not exactly an improvement, but still, impressive." Steve's shoulders tensed. He cocked his fist back and punched the man in the face. He staggered backwards from the force of the blow, and Bucky was reminded once again of how much Steve had changed. 

The man turned and glared at Steve. There was something...wrong with his face. He wasn't bleeding, but there was a crescent of red visible under his left eye, as if the skin had split and peeled away, revealing the flesh beneath it.

"You got no idea," Steve said angrily.

"Haven't I?" the man growled. He swung a fist at Steve's head. Steve ducked behind the shield he carried, and the man's fist slammed into it with a _bang!_ ,leaving a fist shaped dent in the metal. Steve looked down at it, his eyes widening. He went for the gun he carried in a side holster, and the man punched him in the face, rocking him back and knocking the gun out of his hand. On the other end of the catwalk, Zola pulled a lever, making it retract. The motion of the catwalk sent Steve's gun skittering away, into the fiery abyss below.

"No matter what lies Erskine told you, you see I was his greatest success!" the man said, shouting to be heard over the roar of the flames. He reached up to the side of his neck, gripped something there, and-horror of horrors-pulled off his face. The face beneath it-his real face, because the other one was nothing but a mask-was like something out of a nightmare. His skin was the hideously brilliant scarlet color of fresh blood. The tip of his nose was missing, and his skin was pulled tight over the planes of his face, making it look as though his skull was about to burst through his flesh.

"You don't have one of those, do you?" Bucky mumbled.

"You are deluded Captain!" the man, the Red Skull, shouted, tossing his mask into the flames below. "You pretend to be a simple soldier, but in reality you are just afraid to admit that we have left humanity behind!" Gesturing to himself, he added "Unlike you, I embrace it proudly! Without fear!"

"Then how come you're running?!" Steve demanded, but the Red Skull disappeared with Zola into the elevator and didn't answer. Explosions went off below them.

"Come on," Steve said, pointing above them. "Let's go. Up." They raced up flight after flight of stairs. There were no catwalks up here, but there was a roof beam nearby. They stopped and eyed it for a second.

"One at a time," Steve said. Bucky went first, his arms out to keep his balance. More explosions went off, shaking the beam and making it slide downward at least a foot. Bucky crouched and gripped the beam with both hands. When it stopped moving he straightened up, mustered his courage, and all but ran the remaining length of the beam. With the shriek of metal grinding against metal it started to slide downward again, and with a flying leap Bucky managed to grab hold of the railing nearest him and climb over it a split second before the beam plummeted into the fire below. Bucky looked over at Steve, trapped on the other side of a fiery chasm.

"There's gotta be a rope or something!" he yelled.

"Just go!" Steve shouted, gesturing frantically. "Get out of here!"

"No, not without you!" Bucky shouted vehemently, leaning over the railing. That, apparently, was his gut reaction, no matter what situation he and Steve found themselves in. _Not without you. Not without you, Steve. Even if I die because of this, I ain't leaving you behind._

Steve seemed to realize this, seemed to realize that Bucky would die before he left him on his own, and began looking for another way across. Bucky saw though, a split second before Steve did, that with the roof beam gone there was no way for them to reach each other. Metal shrieked as Steve bent a length of broken railing back out of his way, his face contorted in a grimace of exertion. He backed up to the other side of the platform he was standing on, his feet clanking on its metal grating, gave his head a little shake, like _I'm crazy_ , then ran and took a flying leap out into empty air, across the fiery chasm separating him from Bucky. A jet of flame shot up between them, obscuring Bucky's view, and he waited in tense anticipation, his heart feeling like it was trying to crawl up his throat. After what felt like an eternity but was probably no more than a minute, Steve came flying out of the flames and slammed into the railing hard enough to make him cry out. His fingers scrabbled for purchase, and for a terrifying moment Bucky thought he was going to fall, but then he got a grip on the railing and climbed over it, wincing. He and Bucky stood and stared at each other for a long moment, heedless of the roaring flames and the explosions that continued to go off beneath them at irregular intervals.

"Come on," Steve finally said. "Let's get out of this hellhole." Bucky nodded and together they raced out of the factory. Before he knew it they were standing in a clearing with the other people who had been imprisoned in the factory, the ones Steve had set free to serve as a diversion, and Frenchie was shoving a big, bulky energy cannon into his hands. He gripped it tightly and, together with Steve and some 400 odd troops and various stolen weapons and vehicles, marched back toward the safety of the Allied camp, holding his newly acquired weapon at the ready, silently daring anyone or anything to try and hurt Steve now that they had been reunited.


End file.
